In their final regular season match on Saturday, November 11th, Stanford men’s soccer defeated Cal 2-1 on The Farm. Stanford redshirt freshman defender Dylan Hooper scored for the Cardinal at 64:12 while redshirt senior midfielder Mark Fisher scored at 88:21. As for Cal, midfielder Wyatt Meyer scored for the Golden Bears at 35:05. Stanford goalkeeper Rowan Schnebly got the win in the net for the Cardinal with two saves and one goal allowed while Cal goalkeeper Connor Lambe was awarded the loss with six saves and two goals allowed. Stanford got a #16 seed and first round bye in the NCAA Tournament as a result.
BOX SCORE: Cal at Stanford-Saturday, November 11th
“What a game,” Stanford head coach Jeremy Gunn said after the match. “It was an incredible environment, incredible atmosphere, and an incredible game of soccer. We knew that Cal desperately needed the win to get into the national tournament and we just knew it would be a really tough game and the first half didn’t disappoint at all in that it was just so tight. A soccer purist would love to see more soccer, but this is what playoff soccer will be looking like where it can be really tight.”
Stanford got corner kicks at 13:10, 25:59, 31:52, and 32:34 but wasn’t able to score off any of those chances. Ironically, Cal was the team that scored first despite not yet having a corner kick. What gave Cal the chance was a yellow card called against Stanford defender Ryan Dunn at 34:59. As a result, Cal got a free kick, leading to a goal by Wyatt Meyer at 35:05. Meyer found the bottom right of the goal off his right foot courtesy of an assist from Evan Davila. The Bears now had a 1-0 lead.
Stanford would not score in the first half. They did get a corner kick at 44:00, but it didn’t yield any fruit. It would remain a 1-0 lead for Cal at halftime.
“The first half we had a couple half chances, they have a couple half chances, and they score off a cleared set piece,” Gunn said. “And that’s what can happen in these tight games. So, one-nil down at halftime, but the message was really look, we’re in this, we’re gonna get more of an opportunity to play now. It will start to open up, start to slow down, the ball will be on the deck of it more.”
Stanford would get an early corner kick at 49:44, but not capitalize. Soon, both teams would trade yellow cards as Layton Purchase of Stanford got one at 54:37 while Rohan McEligot of Cal got one at 55:27. Cal then got three straight corner kicks at 56:27, 56:58, and 57:18, unable to find the back of the net off any of them.
Stanford would soon even up the match at 64:12, doing so in the most unusual fashion. Dylan Hooper fired a moon shot from midfield off his right foot that landed in the left corner of the goal, right over the goalkeeper. It was perfectly placed. A perfect goal. On his birthday no less. You can’t make this stuff up. It was now tied 1-1.
“Yeah, so like the last couple games I’ve just been, they’ve put me up top like in defensively,” Hooper said. “So, I’ve just been visualizing hitting it from there and this game it just bounced to me, I just visualized hitting it, so I just hit and the rest is history…Kinda just like a mental image. I’m just in there like really wanna hit it. Because I used to play up top. So I was just really thinking about hitting one of these days…Yeah, it’s really funny because the guys are actually messing with me before saying like hey, you gotta get a goal today because it’s for your birthday. It would be a really cool present. So I mean, it’s really funny. It’s really nice to have them, so.”
“Yeah, he’s got a left foot of glory,” Fisher said of Hooper. “He hits those in training, maybe not that far, maybe not that wild, but he’s got a nice strike and yeah ball was in the air and goalie wasn’t ready for it, ball was moving, and yeah, special.”
Cal would get a corner kick at 71:28 while Stanford got corner kicks at 80:07, 80:58, 85:24, and 86:04. Neither team scored off those kicks. With under four minutes to go, it looked like this match was heading for another draw. Just like what happened in Berkeley a couple weeks back.
However, Stanford found a way to break the tie at 88:21 as Mark Fisher had an amazing bicycle kick off his right foot that landed in the bottom left of the goal. It was now a 2-1 lead for the Cardinal with less than two minutes to go. With such little time left, Cal was unable to respond, resulting in a 2-1 victory for Stanford.
“Yeah, long throw from Palm, we were looking to win flicks, win seconds in the box, and fell in the air, I was a in a good spot to hit it maybe get another touch, but it was up there, just went for it,” Fisher said of his goal. “Thought back to my youth days. Just have some fun and let it rip…Yeah, I’ve put a lot into this program. Five years for me now. So that was pretty special [to win on Senior Day]. Special to share with these guys and gotta be Cal at home. That’s definitely an awesome way. Comeback win and looking to use that momentum going forward.”
For the Cardinal, talk about a huge victory. Cal is a tough team and had this been a draw, the Cardinal almost certainly would not have gotten an opening round bye in the NCAA Tournament. They absolutely needed this win and found a way to get the job done with two very unusual goals. Stanford usually scores goals off set pieces and drawn up plays. To have two improvisational goals is what makes the way this ended so crazy.
“I was really proud of how the team played in that second half,” Gunn said. I was proud of how we fought in the first half. And then in the second half, we just slowly got more and more composure, slowly more and more possession on the ground and we got to pass and move the ball better and better. And we were just knocking on the door, knocking on the door, and Cal were defending so well that it was, it looked like it, we could be running out of ideas.
“And, it took a moment of brilliance, I mean what a strike! I’m not sure how far out it was, but my goodness, he absolutely hit it and it kept going, you know? It there wasn’t a goal there it would still be going now probably. And so just one of those worldies to get us back in it on a season where we haven’t had too many out of the blue goals. We’ve generally really really earned our goals and tonight we had a special one to open it up.
“And then, they had one killer chance that we saved on a counterattack and we had several chances and it was again chance, chance and it was like ah, it’s not going to be our day and then to score a bicycle kick to win it on your senior day against your rival, that’s not a bad script is it? No. So, really pleased with the team tonight. Congratulations to Cal. It was another unbelievable fight. A tie could have been the end result, but in a season where we’ve had more ties than we would have wanted, I felt that we deserved to be able to break the deadlock in a tight game and what a way to do it tonight.”
“Yeah it was great,” Fisher added. “Sold out crowd, at night, under the lights at Cagan, can’t get much better than that against Cal. Senior Day was special for me to share with these guys. Brothers that I’ll share the rest of my life with. So, it’s super exciting.”
As for Cal, truly a heartbreaking loss. Had they won this match, they likely would have made the NCAA Tournament. A tie would have put them on the bubble, but to lose this match ended those hopes. A brutal way to end their season given how hard they’ve fought and just how good of a team they really are.
Stanford will open up NCAA Tournament play on Sunday at 5:00 PM PT against Missouri State. The match will be played on The Farm, airing on ESPN+ and KZSU radio.
“We’re a sharp team,” Fisher said. “People should fear us going forward.”
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